Thread: Alcaics
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Unread 07-11-2004, 02:53 AM
robert mezey robert mezey is offline
Master of Memory
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Claremont CA USA
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Some fine things in that poem. Two criticisms: first, the diction sometimes changes register a little jarringly, e.g. "sate her avidity" and "oodles of shoes" --and second, the rhythm is sometimes good but sometimes a little rocky. In lines of that length, if you're just counting syllables, you're essentially writing free verse and so have to depend on your ear. Rereading the Robinson, I saw and remembered that he wasn't just counting syllables, he was also counting accents:
five in the first two lines of each quatrain, four in the second two. Mine is just syllabics, though most lines are five-beaters. And yes, my accusations are somewhat modeled on Horace's, but I also believe everything I say (as I'm sure he believed what he said). The most beautiful alcaics in English in my opinion is Auden's. Here are the last four stanzas of his elegy.

but he would have us remember most of all
to be enthusiastic over the night,
not only for the sense of wonder
it alone has to offer but also

because it needs our love. With large sad eyes
its delectable creatures look up and beg
us dumbly to ask them to follow:
they are exiles who long for the future

that lies in our power, they too would rejoice
if allowed to serve enlightenment like him,
even to bear our cry of 'Judas',
as he did and all must bear who serve it.

One rational voice is dumb. Over his grave
the household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved:
sad is Eros, builder of cities,
and weeping anarchic Aphrodite.


What an ear.


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